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shadowkatStorm clouds on the horizon!
This was taken about forty-five minutes ago. It is currently storming outside my window. We need the rain - so I'm happy about it. But it's pouring so hard outside at the moment, that I can barely see out the window.
Wow - we've got hail! It's serious.
Was hot and sticky on the walk. I came back soaking wet, with my clothes sticking to me, and feeling dehydrated, so I took a nice cool/lukewarm shower.
Feeling lovely at the moment. And the thunderstorm feels like a huge release of energy - my irritability melting away the heavens unleash its wrath upon the earth. Maybe it will cool things off? It's supposed to. Ah, and now, its clearing off. Will I get a rainbow - there's blue sky and sun behind it. NY is now officially a tropical climate, who knew?
New York vs. The Coronavirus and bankruptcy
Anyhow..listened to the Governor's briefing today - he gave a brief one.(I was told it was brief - it lasted an hour.]
He's pissed off at our Federal Government and well, the Sociopath who resides in the White House. (Honestly, aren't we all? And he still hasn't forgiven them for not letting him test when he wanted to test - such as around mid-February. New York may never forgive the Federal Government for what happened in Feb and March, and again, who can blame them? I can't forgive them either.)
We can thank the "Murders of All Good Americans" cult for this. (MAGA= "Murders of All Good Americans", yes, it took me a while, but I finally found a fitting definition for MAGA. Shame I no longer see any MAGA folks that I can use it with. Plus side of the work from home initiative - is I no longer have to deal with the MAGA idiots in my workplace.)
New York is doing well with its rate of infection for the most part. Only has had a few clusters which it managed to isolate. One was due to guy who came up from the Florida for a high school graduation - which resulted in 13 cases, another was in alumium manufacturing plant - 80 cases, and another in a slate plant - about 30 some cases. Or something like that. Showing that contact tracing works. That it only takes one person to spread the virus. And that it tends to happen at large gatherings where there isn't any social distancing, and protocols aren't in place.
So NY is doing well, it just has a few pesky problems: 1) The rest of the nation which refuses to follow the rules and likes to travel in and out NY all the time, (see guy who came up for high school graduation) - it's kind of hard to block NY off from the rest of the nation, we're a state not a country in of ourselves. The Governor was kind of comical.
Governor: It's kind of hard to keep people out. I mean we are hub. And even though it may not seem like it at times, we're a State, we're not a country, we can't keep our fellow Americans out. Also, we're part of the mainland, we're not island, okay Manhattan is kind of an island, but it has bridges and tunnels to and from it, so not really. We have people coming constantly in and out of here. Look how we got it to begin with? Where? Italy! It came from Europe! Because the Federal Government didn't tell us to be wary of Europe just China!
2) the 1 Million idiots who refuse to wear a mask. 95% of us are, there's 5% who just refuse to read the memo, and it only takes one idiot to infect the rest of us. (I know the Governor is right about this - I've been observing it myself. 95% of folks are wearing masks, then there's the selfish bastards who refuse.
3) people who like to congregate in large groups around bars, restaurants, city hall, city streets, waiting in line for ice cream ...without masks. (Which is why they've decided to slow NYC down a bit. I think they are waiting for people to stop congregating. Good luck with that.)
4) fireworks. Ah, turns out I was right, the pesky fireworks are coming from Pennsylvania.
Governor: I'm a Queens man and I've never heard anything like this. NY is like the wild west with all the banging. Fireworks are not only dangerous they are illegal. You are breaking the law. So we're going to set up a State Task Force to stop it at the source.
The governor also directed the New York State Police to establish a new temporary Fireworks Enforcement Detail to prevent illegal fireworks being brought to New York from Pennsylvania. The Detail's establishment is in response to a spike of illegal firework use throughout the state, which has generated widespread complaints and media reports. The detail will be in place until July 3.
Shame they can't stop Pennsylvania from selling the fireworks to Pennsylvanians.
But hey, we're still on schedule more or less - and we only had 8 deaths today, which is rather good considering we were having 800-900 people a day back in April and May. NY is however reconsidering a few of their rules and policies in regards to NYC - such as maybe it isn't such a good idea to open indoor dining for restaurants and bars, especially considering all the people congregating on sidewalks. (And that they've noticed a definite pattern in all the other states that opened up and their cases - it all had to do with those pesky dinner parties/happy hours. (I'm beginning to think COVID-19 is designed to kill extroverts. Us introverts will most likely survive with no problems. But extroverts are doomed.) They are however still on tap for hosting the Video Music Awards at the Barclays Center on August 30.
How are they going to do this? They've come up with a type of HEPA filter that filters out the virus.
"The governor also announced that air conditioning filters with a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) rating capable of filtering COVID-19 particles or similar air exchange measures will be mandatory for large mall reopenings. A COVID-19 particle is approximately 0.125 microns in diameter. Filters with a high MERV, such as High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters, have been shown to help reduce the presence of COIVD-19 in air filtration systems." Go HERE.
They plan on using this filter in malls as well. Airlines are already using it, as are airports. The MTA is installing it in all their buidlings, or so I'm told. And all their subways and trains. (Hence the reason the MTA is broke. It's not cheap.) All businesses will be required to use this device for air circulation as well as restaurants and bars if they want to open. Building inspectors will inspect for it. The system can filter out microbes the size of the virus, apparently. (If you can't kill
the thing? Filter it out.)
Crazy Company
Boss at Crazy Company informed us all today that it is 10.3 Billion in debt. As if I didn't already know this. I mean come on - it wasn't exactly doing great financially prior to COVID-19. Now, it is spending a heck of a lot of money just dealing with COVID-19. It has to buy air filteration systems to keep out the virus, disinfect all the moving parts, provide masks to everyone, and pay the families of MTA workers who died from COVID. That kind of adds up. I'm not a mathematician, but even I know that adds up after a while. Also Crazy Company is State and Federally funded, and the State is bankrupt and the Federal Government is ....well...dysfunctional would be an understatement, that's the UK. We're incompetent. So hardly surprising. I'd be shocked if we weren't broke. In fact I've been operating pretty much as if we are broke or close to it since 2017, and need to be frugal. I think my boss enjoys stressing out his department.
NYC vs. the Black Lives Matter Protestors
Meanwhile...I was telling my mother about the protestors who've camped out in front of Town Hall, until NYC decides to reduce the NYPD's budget aka "defund" the police and redistribute the money elsewhere. They've set up quite a camp for themselves. Redesigned the plaza to be more hospitable. Among the attractions? A library, a community garden, and a tea hut. I've decided they are bored and desperate to socialize, also they are getting a lot of validation from our equally bored media. (I mean the Coronavirus is starting to get old.) It's also kind of fun to protest and camp out.
[NYC is broke, by the way. So I'm not exactly sure why they are fighting over de-funding the police - it's not like NYC actually has any money to fund the police. Actually NYC is more than happy to reduce the police budget by more than half, and use the protests as an excuse to do so, while they are at - they are closing Rikers, releasing people who can't pay bail, and releasing all these folks back into the population, and none of them have any jobs to go back to, or really homes. The police are kind of annoyed, but the city is broke. Doing this solves multiple problems from the city's perspective - less people getting the virus if the jails are less crowded, less money going to the police and more to other areas, and maybe it will appease the protestors! Win-Win. The Mayor announced today that he was struggling to figure out what to cut and if the state didn't fund them soon, they'd have to lay off city workers.]
Below the cut is the article from NY Times on Instagram about the encampment outside City Hall.
Rain or shine, hundreds of protesters have camped outside City Hall in Lower Manhattan around the clock, refusing to leave until the New York Police Department’s budget is cut.
It started on Tuesday night when about 100 protesters began occupying the park in front of the limestone municipal building — with some spending the night — in an effort to pressure the city into reducing its police budget by at least $1 billion. (The city’s budget deadline is July 1.) In a matter of days, a movement took root. What started on a patch of lawn and a few square feet has now taken over most of the park and drawn extensive attention across social media, with “Occupy City Hall” as the group’s rallying cry. Volunteers have flocked to the park, dropping off food, coffee and supplies to build a kind of campground.
The City Hall encampment was initially spearheaded byvocalnewyork, a grass-roots organization. So far, the police have not broken up the gathering, which has taken some inspiration from the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations of 2011 at Zuccotti Park in the financial district in Lower Manhattan.In a short time, organizers, largely black and queer, have transformed the plaza, and developed a sophisticated network to make the space habitable, including building a library, community garden and even a hut for tea lovers.
I'm on the fence about the whole defunding police thing. I'm not so sure this is going to result in the reforms people think it will. Also racism? That's prevalent. It's not just against Blacks. It's also at its root about selfishness. We're an extremely self-centered and narcissistic society. Jim Carrey has a new book out about it - or about how narcissistic Hollywood is - where he lampoons himself, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nick Cage, a thinly disquised Tom Cruise...among others. Stating, somewhat arrogantly, I think, that this is the book for the end of the world as we know it - not the actual end of the world, but the end of the selfish world we live in. I don't know. I've read history. Humans are selfish creatures. If the Plague didn't make us better, or WWII, or the CIVIL WAR, or 1918 Flu, or various other things..why this?
Also Carrey thought 9/11 would be the end of ironic humor and nastiness.
Alrighty then.
I saw on FB, a woman rallying at a old white couple she'd stumbled across who told her not to date her boyfriend because he was black. Which, honestly, pissed me off too. But what she should have written was what I just wrote. Not, "an old Russian Jewish couple who owns a jewelry store and speaks with a thick accent told me ..." because first of all, as one poster pointed out they may not even be Russian - there's a lot of people who may sound Russian but aren't - I know that because of various workplaces. Second, how does she know they are Jewish? And why bring that up? It sparks of racism. Which of course led to a fight between anti-semtisim vs. racism, vs. nationalism vs...I can go on. Nobody won and her point got buried beneath multiple isms...making me want to fall into the chorus of "Everybody's a Little Bit Racist" from Avenue Que. Now if she'd just said a white couple said this to her - it would have been fine.
The problem with racism is what we are protesting about in Black Lives Matter isn't just racism. Racism in of itself is kind of harmless. We're all racist if we think about it. What it is about is one race asserting power over another, or depriving another race of its rights. It's about discrimination, supremacy of one race over another, and well abuse of power or asserting power in a derogatory way over someone else. Which is a bit more than say racism. I mean the woman in the post made a "racist" statement about Russian Jews. But the issue is about how White Americans have treated Black Americans over time. The couple when they told her, a white woman, not to be with a black man, were being racist in a different way.
The distinctions matter in discussing racism.
But it is late...and I have to go to bed. So will take that up for another day. Maybe when I've pondered it a bit more.
This was taken about forty-five minutes ago. It is currently storming outside my window. We need the rain - so I'm happy about it. But it's pouring so hard outside at the moment, that I can barely see out the window.
Wow - we've got hail! It's serious.
Was hot and sticky on the walk. I came back soaking wet, with my clothes sticking to me, and feeling dehydrated, so I took a nice cool/lukewarm shower.
Feeling lovely at the moment. And the thunderstorm feels like a huge release of energy - my irritability melting away the heavens unleash its wrath upon the earth. Maybe it will cool things off? It's supposed to. Ah, and now, its clearing off. Will I get a rainbow - there's blue sky and sun behind it. NY is now officially a tropical climate, who knew?
New York vs. The Coronavirus and bankruptcy
Anyhow..listened to the Governor's briefing today - he gave a brief one.(I was told it was brief - it lasted an hour.]
He's pissed off at our Federal Government and well, the Sociopath who resides in the White House. (Honestly, aren't we all? And he still hasn't forgiven them for not letting him test when he wanted to test - such as around mid-February. New York may never forgive the Federal Government for what happened in Feb and March, and again, who can blame them? I can't forgive them either.)
We can thank the "Murders of All Good Americans" cult for this. (MAGA= "Murders of All Good Americans", yes, it took me a while, but I finally found a fitting definition for MAGA. Shame I no longer see any MAGA folks that I can use it with. Plus side of the work from home initiative - is I no longer have to deal with the MAGA idiots in my workplace.)
New York is doing well with its rate of infection for the most part. Only has had a few clusters which it managed to isolate. One was due to guy who came up from the Florida for a high school graduation - which resulted in 13 cases, another was in alumium manufacturing plant - 80 cases, and another in a slate plant - about 30 some cases. Or something like that. Showing that contact tracing works. That it only takes one person to spread the virus. And that it tends to happen at large gatherings where there isn't any social distancing, and protocols aren't in place.
So NY is doing well, it just has a few pesky problems: 1) The rest of the nation which refuses to follow the rules and likes to travel in and out NY all the time, (see guy who came up for high school graduation) - it's kind of hard to block NY off from the rest of the nation, we're a state not a country in of ourselves. The Governor was kind of comical.
Governor: It's kind of hard to keep people out. I mean we are hub. And even though it may not seem like it at times, we're a State, we're not a country, we can't keep our fellow Americans out. Also, we're part of the mainland, we're not island, okay Manhattan is kind of an island, but it has bridges and tunnels to and from it, so not really. We have people coming constantly in and out of here. Look how we got it to begin with? Where? Italy! It came from Europe! Because the Federal Government didn't tell us to be wary of Europe just China!
2) the 1 Million idiots who refuse to wear a mask. 95% of us are, there's 5% who just refuse to read the memo, and it only takes one idiot to infect the rest of us. (I know the Governor is right about this - I've been observing it myself. 95% of folks are wearing masks, then there's the selfish bastards who refuse.
3) people who like to congregate in large groups around bars, restaurants, city hall, city streets, waiting in line for ice cream ...without masks. (Which is why they've decided to slow NYC down a bit. I think they are waiting for people to stop congregating. Good luck with that.)
4) fireworks. Ah, turns out I was right, the pesky fireworks are coming from Pennsylvania.
Governor: I'm a Queens man and I've never heard anything like this. NY is like the wild west with all the banging. Fireworks are not only dangerous they are illegal. You are breaking the law. So we're going to set up a State Task Force to stop it at the source.
The governor also directed the New York State Police to establish a new temporary Fireworks Enforcement Detail to prevent illegal fireworks being brought to New York from Pennsylvania. The Detail's establishment is in response to a spike of illegal firework use throughout the state, which has generated widespread complaints and media reports. The detail will be in place until July 3.
Shame they can't stop Pennsylvania from selling the fireworks to Pennsylvanians.
But hey, we're still on schedule more or less - and we only had 8 deaths today, which is rather good considering we were having 800-900 people a day back in April and May. NY is however reconsidering a few of their rules and policies in regards to NYC - such as maybe it isn't such a good idea to open indoor dining for restaurants and bars, especially considering all the people congregating on sidewalks. (And that they've noticed a definite pattern in all the other states that opened up and their cases - it all had to do with those pesky dinner parties/happy hours. (I'm beginning to think COVID-19 is designed to kill extroverts. Us introverts will most likely survive with no problems. But extroverts are doomed.) They are however still on tap for hosting the Video Music Awards at the Barclays Center on August 30.
How are they going to do this? They've come up with a type of HEPA filter that filters out the virus.
"The governor also announced that air conditioning filters with a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) rating capable of filtering COVID-19 particles or similar air exchange measures will be mandatory for large mall reopenings. A COVID-19 particle is approximately 0.125 microns in diameter. Filters with a high MERV, such as High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters, have been shown to help reduce the presence of COIVD-19 in air filtration systems." Go HERE.
They plan on using this filter in malls as well. Airlines are already using it, as are airports. The MTA is installing it in all their buidlings, or so I'm told. And all their subways and trains. (Hence the reason the MTA is broke. It's not cheap.) All businesses will be required to use this device for air circulation as well as restaurants and bars if they want to open. Building inspectors will inspect for it. The system can filter out microbes the size of the virus, apparently. (If you can't kill
the thing? Filter it out.)
Crazy Company
Boss at Crazy Company informed us all today that it is 10.3 Billion in debt. As if I didn't already know this. I mean come on - it wasn't exactly doing great financially prior to COVID-19. Now, it is spending a heck of a lot of money just dealing with COVID-19. It has to buy air filteration systems to keep out the virus, disinfect all the moving parts, provide masks to everyone, and pay the families of MTA workers who died from COVID. That kind of adds up. I'm not a mathematician, but even I know that adds up after a while. Also Crazy Company is State and Federally funded, and the State is bankrupt and the Federal Government is ....well...dysfunctional would be an understatement, that's the UK. We're incompetent. So hardly surprising. I'd be shocked if we weren't broke. In fact I've been operating pretty much as if we are broke or close to it since 2017, and need to be frugal. I think my boss enjoys stressing out his department.
NYC vs. the Black Lives Matter Protestors
Meanwhile...I was telling my mother about the protestors who've camped out in front of Town Hall, until NYC decides to reduce the NYPD's budget aka "defund" the police and redistribute the money elsewhere. They've set up quite a camp for themselves. Redesigned the plaza to be more hospitable. Among the attractions? A library, a community garden, and a tea hut. I've decided they are bored and desperate to socialize, also they are getting a lot of validation from our equally bored media. (I mean the Coronavirus is starting to get old.) It's also kind of fun to protest and camp out.
[NYC is broke, by the way. So I'm not exactly sure why they are fighting over de-funding the police - it's not like NYC actually has any money to fund the police. Actually NYC is more than happy to reduce the police budget by more than half, and use the protests as an excuse to do so, while they are at - they are closing Rikers, releasing people who can't pay bail, and releasing all these folks back into the population, and none of them have any jobs to go back to, or really homes. The police are kind of annoyed, but the city is broke. Doing this solves multiple problems from the city's perspective - less people getting the virus if the jails are less crowded, less money going to the police and more to other areas, and maybe it will appease the protestors! Win-Win. The Mayor announced today that he was struggling to figure out what to cut and if the state didn't fund them soon, they'd have to lay off city workers.]
Below the cut is the article from NY Times on Instagram about the encampment outside City Hall.
Rain or shine, hundreds of protesters have camped outside City Hall in Lower Manhattan around the clock, refusing to leave until the New York Police Department’s budget is cut.
It started on Tuesday night when about 100 protesters began occupying the park in front of the limestone municipal building — with some spending the night — in an effort to pressure the city into reducing its police budget by at least $1 billion. (The city’s budget deadline is July 1.) In a matter of days, a movement took root. What started on a patch of lawn and a few square feet has now taken over most of the park and drawn extensive attention across social media, with “Occupy City Hall” as the group’s rallying cry. Volunteers have flocked to the park, dropping off food, coffee and supplies to build a kind of campground.
The City Hall encampment was initially spearheaded by
vocalnewyork, a grass-roots organization. So far, the police have not broken up the gathering, which has taken some inspiration from the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations of 2011 at Zuccotti Park in the financial district in Lower Manhattan.In a short time, organizers, largely black and queer, have transformed the plaza, and developed a sophisticated network to make the space habitable, including building a library, community garden and even a hut for tea lovers.I'm on the fence about the whole defunding police thing. I'm not so sure this is going to result in the reforms people think it will. Also racism? That's prevalent. It's not just against Blacks. It's also at its root about selfishness. We're an extremely self-centered and narcissistic society. Jim Carrey has a new book out about it - or about how narcissistic Hollywood is - where he lampoons himself, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nick Cage, a thinly disquised Tom Cruise...among others. Stating, somewhat arrogantly, I think, that this is the book for the end of the world as we know it - not the actual end of the world, but the end of the selfish world we live in. I don't know. I've read history. Humans are selfish creatures. If the Plague didn't make us better, or WWII, or the CIVIL WAR, or 1918 Flu, or various other things..why this?
Also Carrey thought 9/11 would be the end of ironic humor and nastiness.
Alrighty then.
I saw on FB, a woman rallying at a old white couple she'd stumbled across who told her not to date her boyfriend because he was black. Which, honestly, pissed me off too. But what she should have written was what I just wrote. Not, "an old Russian Jewish couple who owns a jewelry store and speaks with a thick accent told me ..." because first of all, as one poster pointed out they may not even be Russian - there's a lot of people who may sound Russian but aren't - I know that because of various workplaces. Second, how does she know they are Jewish? And why bring that up? It sparks of racism. Which of course led to a fight between anti-semtisim vs. racism, vs. nationalism vs...I can go on. Nobody won and her point got buried beneath multiple isms...making me want to fall into the chorus of "Everybody's a Little Bit Racist" from Avenue Que. Now if she'd just said a white couple said this to her - it would have been fine.
The problem with racism is what we are protesting about in Black Lives Matter isn't just racism. Racism in of itself is kind of harmless. We're all racist if we think about it. What it is about is one race asserting power over another, or depriving another race of its rights. It's about discrimination, supremacy of one race over another, and well abuse of power or asserting power in a derogatory way over someone else. Which is a bit more than say racism. I mean the woman in the post made a "racist" statement about Russian Jews. But the issue is about how White Americans have treated Black Americans over time. The couple when they told her, a white woman, not to be with a black man, were being racist in a different way.
The distinctions matter in discussing racism.
But it is late...and I have to go to bed. So will take that up for another day. Maybe when I've pondered it a bit more.